Jo Clayton Drinker 01 Drinker Of Souls

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fire here and half of Silili would go. Bad enough to have Hina on his tail
when some ghost or other named him as the fire-starter, something that big
would bring in Temueng enforcers and maybe even an Imperial Censor. He d be
skinned alive and hung to rot. His family too and everyone who helped him and
their families. Taga flung his arms out. And even when he was dead, the
ghosts he made would torment the ghost he was. I m not worth all that. No way.
Not even for dearest Yarm the family hope. He smiled at the little girl.
Want to come along?
She gazed a moment at her brother, then nodded. Why not. This ghost business
is weird.
Taguiloa stared at her. Your kind don t die?
Oh they die all right. And stay dead. Ghosts? No way.
They don t have souls?
That s something they ve been arguing about since el-dest ancestor learned to
talk. She shrugged. A waste of time and breath far as I can see. She
watched as Jaril blurred then changed into a Hina boy. This is the first
reality we ve seen where there are ghosts you can actually talk to. She
shimmered and changed to a small golden lemur, then hopped up to ride her
brother s shoulder.
Well, Jaril said, she couldn t come as a little girl, that d make your
friends uncomfortable.
Taguiloa pulled the door shut, turned the key in the lock and dropped the
metal bit into a pocket, then started walking toward the gate through the
rustling foliage of bushes he reminded himself he d have to water in the
morning. You change your shapes so why couldn t she be another boy?
The lemur gave a chittering sound that sounded indig-nant. Jaril grinned and
patted her paw. But Yaril s a female, he said. She couldn t do that.
Why not? Curiosity driving him, Taguiloa persisted. It s only appearance
after all. If I dressed myself in wom-an s robes, painted my face, wore a wig
and practiced a bit, I could make a fairly convincing appearance as a woman,
though my real nature wouldn t change at all.
The boy turned those strange crystal eyes on him; when Taguiloa was sure he
wasn t going to answer, he did. The inner and outer are one with us. If we
try to change the nature of the outer, we deny and warp the inner. So he
grinned, an impudent urchin grin that acknowl-edged and mocked Taguiloa s
voice that we seem chil-dren should tell you we are children.
How old are you?
Hard to say. Time is funny. Six or seven hundreds of your years. Something
like that.
Children?
We grow slowly.
Seems like. He tapped a finger on Jaril s head, re-lieved to find it solid,
warm and a little oily. Talking about weird, I find you changechildren
stranger than any ghost I ve ever seen.
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THEY WANDERED THROUGH the night quarter, sharing jugs of wine, the lemur a
popular little beast with her smooth soft fur and dainty manners; they got
evicted from a few places when some weak-stomached drinkers refused to
tolerate an animal drinking from men s wine bowls and others who liked the
beast somewhat more than they liked the objectors jumped the objectors and
started breaking the furniture; they visited a joyhouse, Jaril pouting and
Yaril sulking when Taguiloa wouldn t let them go upstairs with him; they
settled for entertaining the joygirls, Jaril clapping his hands and dancing,
Yaril dancing with him, a small and elegant figure, bowing and swaying with
the most wonderful grace, golden fur glimmering in the lamp-light. The lemur
even played a simple tune on a gittern abandoned in a corner. They stayed
there quite a while even after Taguiloa rejoined them, but eventually
wan-dered on to watch a fight in the middle of the street, throw the bones
with a circle of men on the sidewalk, losing and winning with equal
enthusiasm, all three savor-ing the noise and activity about them, loud,
raucous, mostly illegal and immoral, but full of vigor and the beat of life.
Now and then Taguiloa got a jolt when he looked at Jaril s eager young face,
then he d tell himself, seven hundred years, Tungjii s tits and tool, and
forget worrying about corrupting the boy.
Sometime after midnight, he doused his head with ice-water, looked blearily
about, collected the children and started threading through the narrow streets
heading toward the Players Quarter.
They left the lamplit streets behind, left the noise and warmth and good
feeling. Taguiloa shivered, the water in his hair making him cooler though it
didn t do much to clear the fog out of his head. I shouldn t have had that
last jug.
Jaril shook himself like a large wet dog. Yaril--lemur leaped off his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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